This is not a textbook. It does not explicitly introduce an academic discipline. It does not systematically describe subfields, theories, schools of thought, particular thinkers, or intellectual history. There are no biographical notes; there is no attention to historical context. There is no jargon. The style is breezy and conversational. If you are seeking “information” about philosophy, you will be disappointed.

This is not a textbook; it might be a guidebook, or a handbook, but really it’s a storybook. It introduces the idea of philosophy as a “way of life,” a way of living into a story that unfolds through a sequence of questions: where are you, what’s keeping you here, how to you get out, where are you going. The sequence repeats, and with each iteration, new layers may added to the story. There are variations on a theme. But the theme is simple, and the point of the repetition is not really to complicate the story: it is to burn the story into your brain. The point is to give you a narrative framework broad and strong enough to support the weight you will add if and when you start building a real knowledge of philosophy as a discipline.

In a later course you might study “utilitarianism,” for example. You will have a place in your narrative framework to put “utilitarianism.” You will be better equipped to recognize where ideas go, to explain how they relate to one another. But you are not really trying to do that now. Think of this guidebook as a map to a territory full of features that you are not going to label yet. You’ll encounter a few labels, here and there. But but your goal now is not to label things. Your goal is just to get your bearings, to get a basic sense for what is really at stake if and when you start to really study philosophy.

The questions have all kinds of technical formulations, as do their many competing answers. A traditional textbook might introduce those formulations. Here they are given simple, stylized forms, and they are organized into a structure that may, or may not, be the potential structure of a human life. The sequence of questions challenges you by offering choices. It is a map of roads that lead in very different directions. Maybe the story of a human life does not have a true form; but the form of each life is the story of roads taken, and roads not taken.

The questions are posed and explored through an idiosyncratic and eclectic collection of material. The collection includes excerpts from great works of philosophy, like Plato’s Republic, but it also includes short stories and essays, and you’ll watch a popular film (The Matrix).

Most of the actual work of “doing philosophy” will take place not when you’re reading the textbook, but when you’re sitting in class, with your professor and your peers. That’s as it should be. Socrates thought philosophy didn’t even work if you wrote it down. He thought it only worked if it was a real-time conversation. The textbook is about “doing philosophy.” It can point you in a direction. But you’re not really doing philosophy if you’re just reading the textbook.

Chapters work like this:

• First, there’s a “Preparation.” For the Preparation you’ll read a short piece that makes an argument or introduces a topic that’s related to the main idea of the chapter. In this section there’s always a “required reading” and an “optional reading.” You’ll have four questions to answer about the required reading.
• Second, there’s an “Introduction.” This introduces the main reading.
• Third, there’s the main reading itself. Sometimes this is an actual reading, sometimes it’s a video of the author reading the piece out loud.
• Fourth, there’s a “Discussion.” This elaborates on the main reading.
• Fifth, there’s a “Reflection.” This offers one or more questions about the main reading, with instructions on how to answer them.

Enjoy!

(Or maybe you shouldn’t enjoy? Whether or not you should enjoy this is actually a very good philosophical question . . .)